


Strangers (Falling In Love With A Face I've Never Known)

by blametheone



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Awkward Flirting, Awkwardness, Dare, Implied homophobia, Just read, Kids, Long-Term Relationship(s), M/M, Staring, Strangers, Teenage Liam, Teenage Zayn, Ten Years Later, glares, implied islamophobia, its cute okay, teenage romance, ziam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-02
Updated: 2016-01-02
Packaged: 2018-05-11 02:04:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5609704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blametheone/pseuds/blametheone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zayn gets too many dirty looks in public to truly believe that the awkward, blushing boy standing by the milk fridge has intentions any better than to ignorantly insult him like everyone else always does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Strangers (Falling In Love With A Face I've Never Known)

**Author's Note:**

> *hangs head* i'll go write my lilo story, i'm sorry........

Zayn was shopping with his family, at least, half of them. His mother, Waliyha and himself were grocery shopping while his father, Doniya and Safaa got dinner (Friday night, take out). He was just wandering around, minding his own damn business and there was this  _kid_ , some random kid about his age maybe (hopefully) who kept  _looking_.

He just wouldn't  _stop looking_.

And, like, Zayn was used to people looking and he was used to digs and quips about his dad, his skin, his religion, his sexuality, his art, anything. But,  _really_ , most people at least  _tried_ to be subtle about it.

And then his mum sent him off to find the milk and this kid must have seen that as his chance, bee-lining right to him. 

Zayn pulled up his hood and tried to hide his face from the kid, physically turning his body as he was approached. There was cat calling and wolf whistles off from some other part of the store, which Zayn assumed was for this boy, as he blushed a little at the sound of them.

"What do you want?" Zayn sighed out quickly, hoping to get the teasing over and done with so he could just bring the bloody milk back to mum and go home and pretend this didn't happen.

"I... hi?" the kid mumbled, and it suddenly dawned on Zayn that he probably wasn't going to be made fun of. The boy cleared his throat and started again, though it wasn't any more eloquent than the stuttered greeting.

"Hey, um... are you, like... would... do you want to meet up sometime or something, like... I don't know, something?"

Zayn chuckled and looked up at the boy with a grin. "Please don't tell me that's ever worked before?"

The boy went bright red and hung his head. "Well, I... I just, like, um... I'll leave now-"

"No, no!" Zayn awkwardly stuttered. "I didn't, like, didn't want you to leave. U-unless you, erm, like, like, y'know, have to leave... or something."

There was a slow but steadily noticeable dawn on on the kid's face as he realized that Zayn was just as awkward as he was, just another seventeen-year-old boy spending Friday night with his family in a grocery store.

The kid chuckled and stuck out his hand. "I'm Liam."

"Zayn," he took Liam's hand and shook it a little, smiling just slightly. "So, do you have to leave or are you going to actually try and  _flirt_ before you ask me out?"

Liam blushed and pushed his hands into his pockets, the cat calls starting up again somewhere behind them, to which he blushed harder.

"I... I'm sorry," he shook his head. "I'll dive in and say it, just hear me out, yeah?"

Zayn nodded, finally reaching into the fridge and pulling out the two bottles of milk he was asked to retrieve while Liam began his spiel.

"It's just that, like, I mean... you're probably the most attractive boy I've seen in this store, and probably for all of ever in real life," he rushed out. "And I thought, I'm probably the most awkward person ever, and I've been rejected twenty-two times by the same girl, so I'm probably doing a lot of things wrong, but I have to try, right?"

Zayn was frozen in shock, standing across from Liam with tinted cheeks and a slack jaw.

"So," the boy huffed. "My name is Liam Payne, I'm seventeen years old and I would very much like to get to know you, and hopefully have the chance to take you out on a date some time."

There was a hushed silence between them, the only noises being the beep of the cash register and the muted din of the general supermarket conversations.

"Also, I really like Batman too," Liam pointed at Zayn chest, and that broke the poor boy out of his state of shock as he looked down and laughed because  _of bloody course_  he's wearing his worn-out Batman shirt and paint-stained joggers right now.

"Are you real?" Zayn scoffed out a laugh, still rattled from Liam's little speech. "Are you actually real, or is this some TV prank? You don't even know if I like boys, let alone strange boys that walk up to me in the bloody supermarket on a Friday night and tell me I'm attractive in my Batman shirt!"

Liam shrugged. "I've never seen you around, what do I have to lose?"

"How the hell have you been rejected twenty times?"

"Twenty-two," Liam corrected. "Not that anyone's counting."

Zayn stared at him for a moment before snorting, giggling a bit under his breath and covering it with the milk bottles. Liam grinned.

"Is that a yes?" he asked hopefully and Zayn nodded, rolling his eyes at the whoops and whistles down the aisle of cleaning products, just noticing a pair of boys watching them.

"Here," Zayn reached into his pocket and pulled out a pen (shut up, he was doodling on a napkin not five minutes ago), grabbing onto Liam's hand to scribble down the side of his arm. "This is my number. It was nice meeting you, Liam Payne, but I have a family to get back to and I think you have a girl to not ask out anymore?"

Liam chuckled, looking up from his arm and smiling so wide his face looked near splitting, his happiness contagious. He nodded and pointed over at his friends, beginning to walk off but continuing to grin at Zayn.

"I'll talk to you soon, then?" he offered cautiously and Zayn bit back at his smile as he nodded, watching Liam disappear slowly.

"Who was that?" a voice was suddenly in his hear and Zayn's not ever going to admit that he jumped a couple feet in the air and shrieked like a little girl. 

"Fuc- Wali!" he snapped. "Don't scare me like that!"

"Who was it?" she insisted, taking one of the bottles from Zayn's arms and pulling him along through the shops.

"Just... just some guy," Zayn answered quickly. "It doesn't matter. What are you even doing here, shouldn't you be helping Mum?"

Waliyha rolled her eyes. "She sent me to come get you because you were taking to long. Why are your cheeks all red?"

Zayn just shook his head and ignored her, taking the milk from his sister's arms and handing it to his mother upon reaching her.

 

 **Unknown Number:**  hey  its liam . is it 2 cliche to ask u to teh movies nex fri ?   its th e new spdman movie .

 

_~~ Ten Years Later ~~_

 

Ten years later, you'd think that Zayn was less wary of people staring.

All things considered, things like the fact that the stuttering kid he met by the milk fridge in a supermarket ended up being his boyfriend for three years, then proposed when he was just barely twenty years old, and now they were happily married with an adopted three-year old and in the waiting period for a baby girl.

Taking all of this into account, you'd think Zayn would be more accepting of people that stare at him in supermarkets.

But like, fuck that, because as positive as his experience with Liam was, Zayn was too accustomed to disgusted glares from the general public for literally whatever reason they felt like focusing on in that particularly moment. About half the time, the glares were due the Liam's hand resting easily on Zayn's hip, and the matching rings on their fingers. The other fifty percent of the time Zayn didn't care to engage in the conversation about what exactly.

Point being, he was too fucking accustomed to people metaphorically (and sometimes literally) spitting on him in public, and that's no way to live a married, family life. He has a _son_ , for Christ's sake, he can't let Trevor grow up thinking his Baba is a bloody criminal or something.

Also, it hurt.

A lot.

And there was a girl blatantly staring at them in the supermarket and Zayn was literally _this close_ to turning around and screaming at her until he was escorted from the premises. He rolled his eyes, rather, and brushed a hand against Liam's.

"Li," he sighed. "Can we hurry up and go? There's a girl staring at me and I don't want to be here anymore..."

Twenty seven years old and the puppy dog eyes still worked the as good as ever.

Liam's back straightened a bit and Zayn made a face.

"Ah, no," he scolded. "You aren't going to go all protective, we're going to finish up here and leave, now."

Liam made a face and peeked over Zayn's shoulder, eyes widening a little.

"Oh," he blinked, face falling into a grin as he chuckled a little. "That's one of my students, babe. That's probably why she was staring."

Oh, okay... Whatever, other people were probably sneering, his point was still valid.

"Should I go annoy her?" Liam smirked at him and Zayn sent him a look ( _that look_ , y'know?) with one eyebrow raised.

"Liam, you hate doing that," he reminded.

"She hasn't handed in our last assignment, I should so go annoy her," Liam stood up straight, pulling Trevor up onto his hip and walking right towards the girl.

"Liam!" Zayn called out in vain, watching his husband walk past the shopping trolley and to the startled girl who had just recognised her teacher. He rolled his eyes, watching the interaction with an amused expression.

The girl made a face while Liam grinned, letting him know she was embarrassed by his presence. Particularly when her mother recognised the P.E teacher from parent-teacher interviews and engaged Liam in deep conversation, saying hello to Trevor while they were at it.

The girl looked over at Zayn, recognising him as the man on Mr. Payne's desktop background and making a faux-crying face.

Zayn snorted despite himself and watched as Liam meandered back over to him, bouncing Trevor a little.

"Did you have fun?" Zayn drawled and Liam giggled.

"Of course," he waved a hand. "I live to embarrass all the kids in my life, whether they're my students or actually my kids."

Zayn snorted and chuckled under his breath, in disbelief that he was actually married to this dork.

"So, who was she?" he asked.

"Her name's Melanie," Liam explained. "You want to know a funny story?"

"Mm?" Zayn prompted, uninterested, as he began pushing the trolley along again.

"She came up to me after class last week, asking for advice," he smirked, side-eyeing Zayn in waiting for the reaction. "She realised a couple months ago that she's gay and she didn't know who to talk to except me."

And okay, that shocked him a little (a lot).

"Wh-..." Zayn paused for a moment, taking everything Liam had just said and processing it. "What did you tell her?"

"Well," Liam started, "She was mainly freaking out about someone never loving her, right?"

"Mm..." Zayn responded to let Liam know he was still listening, remembering his own younger self with those same thoughts. "And what did you say?"

Liam looked at him with such live in his eyes, like Zayn was the sunset and sunrise and the sun. Like he was remembering everything between them in the past ten years. He kissed Trevor's head and smiled so bright his face must have hurt.

"I told her that I met my first and only love at this very supermarket because I saw this really pretty boy and my best friend said that if I didn't go ask him out he would take the marker out of his pocket and write 'pussy' across my forehead," he grinned, and that's when Zayn's demeanor crumbled into a fond chuckle.

Liam reached out for his hand and locked their warm fingers together, and no matter how many times they held hands, no matter how much skin they had pressed against each other, Zayn still felt that bloom of comfort and warmth and home spread through his chest when Liam took his hand.

"I know they stare," Liam said softly. "I know people look at us, at you, and I know how much you hate it."

Zayn's eyes fell a little and he sighed, looking up and walking forward.

"Can," he cleared his throat. "Can you you grab those noodles?"

Liam smiled and kissed his lips suddenly, right there in the supermarket with Trevor giggling in his arms.

"Own it, babe, make them stare."

Zayn blushed and stared straight ahead because he was a grown ass man and he didn't blush just because his husband said cute things. Liam transferred Trevor between their arms, and Zayn held his baby boy close.

"Make them stare?"

Liam only smirked.

**Author's Note:**

> yeah you guys can decide on the implications of that ending.


End file.
